Misc. Comments

The organ mass was the first composed. According to Grove Music, Kodaly "helped save people from persecution until he and his wife had to seek refuge in the cellar of a Budapest convent, where he completed the Missa brevis, a version for solo voices, chorus and orchestra of an earlier organ mass. He saw out the Battle of Budapest in the shelter of the opera house; the Missa brevis received its first performance in a cloakroom there."